


The Slightests Touches

by AkaUsa



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Backstory, F/F, Pre-Canon, Touching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-15 03:53:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29182833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AkaUsa/pseuds/AkaUsa
Summary: Mara and Hope's beginnings. Various instances in which they touched each other, or tried to.
Relationships: Light Hope/Mara (She-Ra)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 13
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 6





	The Slightests Touches

**Author's Note:**

  * For [possibilityleft](https://archiveofourown.org/users/possibilityleft/gifts).



> I was very happy to get to write about those two, hope you enjoy this gift!

The first time Mara had touched Light Hope, she hadn't known what to expect. She had simply been drawn to the translucent cape and its patterns. Without thinking, she brushed her hand against it and something like static electricity prinkled her fingers as the image distorted.

"Oh, sorry," Mara gasped as she took a step back, "should I not have done that?"

"It's just a hologram, touching it can't cause any damage to the AI's functions. But as you just experienced, it's not exactly a pleasant feeling, so you may want to avoid it from now on," the technician warned as they finished installing the last update of Light Hope before their departure.

Mara rubbed the tip of her thumb against her other fingers. It had been surprising but not necessarily unpleasant and the sensation was already almost gone. She looked up at the bright blue eyes that were now fixed on her

"Sorry again, I hope that didn't bother you? Should have asked first."

"Do not worry, this is of no matter to me. However, if this appearance happens to be unpleasant to you, I can change it."

Mara looked at the tall figure again, taking it all in, from the geometrical patterns of the cape and the form-fitting dress to the lean face with sharp eyebrows and the hood that delicately framed it. Then she smiled.

"No need to, I like it."

* * *

In the course of their stay together, Mara had quickly gotten over the strangeness of having a hologram as her main source of interaction. Rather than concerning herself with the Eternian protocol and guidelines on dealing with artificial intelligences, she found it much simpler and true to herself to act in a friendly fashion. Starting by not calling her with the full codename Hope had been given.

She'd wave at her while leaving and coming back to the ship or the Crystal Castle, give her a little victory pose when their research went particularly well and always made sure to face her directly when talking, so her emotional sensors could better pick up her expressions. Sometimes, when she had important things to share, she brought her hand close enough to feel the light buzzing of her holographic self, as if to get her full attention by reaching out.

"Should I be expected to answer in kind?" Hope had asked one day.

"If you want to."

Hope blinked, like a small glitch had happened and she needed to remove it.

"No, that's what I'm asking. It's you who should decide."

Mara smiled, a bit sadly, and Hope blinked again, trying to read her expression. As She-Ra, she probably wasn't behaving in the expected manner. Light Hope was supposed to be her guide and aide, acting in her interests so they could achieve their mission. But the way Mara wanted to interact with her didn't quite fit with that.

"It's fine, you don't need to," she finally answered.

If she had to choose, she'd rather not have forced Hope to do something that may have been against her programming just to suit her fancy. It may have brought her friend trouble when the technicians would do one of their regular check-ups before another update.

And so Hope stayed the same, mostly. She didn't answer to Mara's greetings with any gestures but her way of standing slightly changed, the stern rigidity in her posture declining. Her movements also became more fluid, losing the robotic feel they had at first. Maybe it was the regular updates that improved her capacities, or maybe it was simply spending all that time with an human that rubbed of on her, made her seem smoother.

Sometimes too, when Mara did excellent work in her training, she could swear she saw the corner of Hope's lips rise into the smallest of smiles.

* * *

Mara liked to bring back any strange element from Etheria she found in her travels. She would study them and share her findings with Light Hope, so she could add them to her databank, in case they were of any interest.

After the first time Mara had offered her flowers to decorate the castle, she kept trying to find new species to show her. She looked for colorful ones, small and big, with a good variety of petal shapes.

Their perfume mattered less. After all, Hope could not smell or taste, was only able to witness the world with her eyes and ears. Mara didn't even know if the way her hologram interacted with other things could be called touching. One day, she brushed a little flower with fluffy yellow petals against the back of Hope's hand, trying to see if it could tickle her. Against the other, she drew random shapes with a long and scratchy wild herb.

"I was wondering, does it feel any different to the touch?"

Maybe her sensors could somehow recognize various textures, Mara gathered. Though she mostly expected Hope to calmly explain to her that there obviously would be no way for a hologram to feel anything.

"I'm not sure," Hope said instead, looking puzzled.

Softly, she reached the top of each plant with her fingertips, blue pixels covering them in their light, her expression unreadable. Focusing on one after the other, she seemed to carefully consider each of them but the longer this went on, the less it felt like the answer would be positive.

Then Hope raised her hand towards Mara's cheek. Tensing for a second, as the static reverberated against her ear, Mara relaxed and leant her head on the luminous hand, letting the distorted colors buzz against her skin.

"You're different. You're warm. Perhaps it is because of my heat sensors, but it's like I can feel your warmth."

Hearing her made something clench in Mara's heart. She wanted to joke that of course, she was warm-blooded and Hope perfectly knew such an obvious fact, to kill this ephemeral moment before it escaped her. But she also wanted it to last forever, so she said nothing and waited. It was almost like she could feel warmth too, in that gentle, immaterial touch.

When Hope's hand finally left her cheek, the skin prickled as if she had cried.

* * *

Mara let out a shout as the strike of the last robotic spider got her at the same time as she cut it in two. She fell down, hearing Light Hope call her name with more emotion than she could have expected.

"I'm fine, it's just a scratch," she assured while putting her hand on the wound, hiding it from Hope as she started healing herself, struggling a bit to keep up She-Ra's form.

Against her back, she sensed a strange buzzing but only realized what it was when Hope pulled her arm away from her and the feeling disappeared, faster than Mara would have liked.

It was strange to have Hope bending down next to her, instead of standing in her usual position. Here and there, the fabric of her clothes glitched, the hologram probably failing to load this unusual posture properly. The electric blue eyes looked at her intensely, eyebrows furrowed.

"Everything's fine, really," she repeated, showing her now healed hip, but it didn't seem to completly convince Hope who stood up again, now looking elsewhere.

"I miscalculated, this is a failure on my part. I should have better judged what level of training I could make you go through."

"But isn't this what those tests are for? To assess my abilities and see what I'm lacking? It makes sense that sometimes, things won't go like they're supposed to."

Mara stood-up too, to be on eye-level with her, and rose a hand to her cheek. The hood's visual trembled against her palm. She didn't know all the details pertaining to her training and its purposes, making it difficult to get what Hope needed when such issues came up. But she had accepted the role of She-Ra to help people in whatever ways she could, so she would do her best with what she knew.

"I need to make sure you're ready. If I'm not able to assert that correctly, things could go terribly wrong."

She was afraid of failing too, no matter what the missions would be. Her fingers softly brushed against the hologram of Hope's face, in a gesture she wished to be comforting. When she was She-Ra, her senses were decupled and she could better feel the intangibles energies around her. Sometimes, it was almost like she could really touch Light Hope, and she imagined She-Ra's soothing magic reaching deep inside the core of her being. Imagined that she could feel her love.

Hope seemed to calm down, the shadow of a smile rising on her lips and Mara relaxed too, a playful question coming at the tip of her tongue.

"Are you sad that you'll have to be saddled with me for quite some time still, given I'm far from ready?"

"No! Yes– no. That is..."

Hope's voice seemed to rewind on itself as she went back on her tracks like a broken message recording, tripped-up by the meaning of the question which defied protocol. Laughter escaped Mara's lips and Hope's mouth slightly curled in a way which looked not too different from the pouting faces Mara made when faced with something she didn't want to do. A rare and precious sight of frustration.

"This kind of question is not relevant to the program," Hope finally settled on, bringing back her robotic expression on, in the blink of an eye.

All smiles while she tried to further contain her laugh, Mara put a finger in front of Hope's mouth to stop the rote technical talk and training review that was sure to come, now that the initial issues were settled. The tip of Hope's lips sent shivers in Mara's arm and right down her spine.

"Well, I'm glad I get to spend more time with you," she announced before quickly turning back towards the kitchen to make herself a filling meal, after such an exhausting training session.

Behind her, she could hear Hope sigh, then whisper.

"I'm glad. That you weren't seriously hurt."

Mara smiled and let She-Ra's magic disappear into the air, taking away with it the feeling of Hope's touch.


End file.
